


What I Know About War

by Spellshade (OnyxOverlord)



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Retelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-08-20 06:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxOverlord/pseuds/Spellshade
Summary: This is the painful, self-recorded holotape diary of Nathan B. Douglas, the Sole Survivor of the Vault 111 cryogenic meltdown.





	1. Chapter 1

War.

War never changes.

It’s an ugly thing, not that anyone with any sense needs told that. Several generations of family served, so enlisting for me was always just… expected. I wouldn’t say it’s what I wanted, but I wasn’t going to put up a fuss either. Routine career mostly, training, drills and virtual reality simulations to prepare. But then the Reds took Anchorage, and there was no routine. Shipped out in freshly winterized gear, barely enough time to say goodbye to my wife.

I didn’t know then that adjusting to life back home would be even harder. On the front lines, down in the trenches with my squad, my commander was killed in action. A good man, if not one I knew well. They thrust command on me, and told us to keep pushing. All that came next was carnage. Commandos we couldn’t see - not snipers, but god-damned invisible men, they tore us apart. Instead of making a run for it, I… I tossed a bouquet of grenades into the fray. They say I saved the few men standing behind me, but all I saw were the faces of the men still alive, frozen with horror as they tried to claw their way out of the massacre. They stuck a medal on me, but I think they knew it sooner than I did. I was done. Broken. A few weeks later the Chinese General Jingwei was killed, and I was sent home, honorably discharged and with a fancy new plaque and bars for my uniform. In just over a year they’d wipe Anchorage clean of Reds altogether.

I received a hero’s welcome, but Nora, my wife… she knew. Could see it in me, maybe. I didn’t leave our home very often for a while. When Nora got pregnant, I knew I had to get back into the workforce. Military, or government - I don’t know which, but they sent me these black envelopes, emblazoned with a white letter E, trying to get me to join some exclusive unit. Looking back, I wonder if things would be better if I’d taken them up on that offer. But it was too fresh, too raw. I ended up becoming a detective, given my eyes were still sharp and my memory all too picture perfect. Paired up with a real stand up guy on a corruption case, man we just couldn’t nail down. Never thought I’d meet him, or maybe a reflection of him, again. But that’s hardly the biggest shock I’ve had in this whole damn ride.

Fast-forward a few months later, and my son, Shaun, was born. I took some time off to help with him, and the military said they’d cover it, given they wanted me to speak at some conference anyway… And then it happened. Was just getting ready to shave when I heard our Mister Handy, Codsworth, drop a stack of dishes on the floor. When we went to see what was wrong, and the reporter on the television relayed the news… It all went grey in my mind. Nora and I, we were out the door with Shaun as the sirens started up. Vertibirds whirred through the sky, and infantry in T-51b Power Armor were rounding people up, shepherding us participants toward the local vault, and the rest to lower, unexposed ground. Smart, but it probably wouldn’t save them.

As the vault elevator began to creak and take us down, that’s when the nukes dropped, and well. If you’re hearing this, you know how that turned out already. As for my family, we were deceived. The vault was no safe haven. We were cryogenically frozen, for study, and when a post-war group called The Institute discovered our vault, they irreparably damaged the array.  
  
And worst of all? They killed my wife, and stole my son.

By the time I woke up again, almost everyone else had already died from asphyxiation in their pods. The few who still had vital signs… they weren’t going to survive thawing out. Clutching my wife’s ring in my hand, I marched out of Vault 111 armed with a handgun and fifty megatons of pure hate. And I had to save my son - he was all I had left, and he never asked for this, had no choice in being born at the ass end of human history.

I think this is as far as I can go right now… End recording, save as holotape session one.


	2. Entry 2, Given a Minute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan explores his new surroundings, the nukes having terraformed Boston nearly beyond recognition, wandering looking for any sign of human life.

Strangest string of decisions I've ever made, I'll admit. Walked, or more astutely stumbled my way through the brush to old Concord, when the sudden crack of bullets and signature smell of artificial O-zone filled the air. I clutched my head, doubled over some... It brought back some painful things. Thought maybe even after they blew up the world, two hundred and ten years later according to Codsworth, these fucks were still fighting the same old war. But no, instead it was shoddily dressed, dirty people... covered head to toe in rusty, angular metal plates bolted together into makeshift armor. My hand twitched, drifting to my hip... but I didn't have a gun. Told Codsworth to take it - I'd be a danger to myself out here alone, more than the wildlife was a danger to me. Didn't expect the world to be filled with violent psychopaths and misanthropes I know now as Raiders.

I crept through the twigs and brush growing around the alleyway across from the old speakeasy. I was close, close to a filthy man holding a crudely fashioned improvised gun. It would do. Bracing myself, I cupped my hand over his mouth and placed the other on his jaw. It wasn't very hard - likely on a lack of calcium in the post war world. But the sensation of ending life was just as viscerally unpleasant as it had been in Anchorage - they were right about that at least. That never changed.

After a once-over of the admittedly impressive, but poorly maintained pipe hewn gun, I levied it against my shoulder and knelt down behind a beat up old pickup, the road hog had seen better days. Watched intently as occasionally one of the foul-mouthed raiders would be picked off, the rest shouted and took shots at the improvised sniper's nest above the old Museum. Poor marksmanship was apparently in vogue. It took a lot of deep breathing, and risking my ass talking myself down, but I pulled together and sighted a few of the would-be marauders and took their lives. I could feel vomit gurgling in the back of my throat, my stomach churning and head spinning, but I held it down, until the last of the raiders outside had been killed. Other than a few scrapes from diving low to avoid a pipe bomb, I came out of it no worse for wear physically, but the gravity of the blood on my hands weighed on me. Still does.

Met the odd fellow who'd been perched atop the Museum after clearing out the stragglers in the museum lobby. Named Preston Garvey, he called himself a "Minuteman," and before I knew it I was sucked up in his zeitgeist, thankful for the presence of a living, sane human being. We exchanged names and backgrounds, and I agreed to take them to my former home - Sanctuary Hills. There, Codsworth was running a self repair diagnostic since I managed to scavenge the parts necessary to deactivate long-term service mode, where he took very poor personal care. After some introductions, I sat on the concrete with a sigh, drawing up a cigarette from a soggy, warped pack I'd found by the river. Nora hated when I smoked, and I'd been clean for years, but somehow I figured that if the radiation didn't give me cancer before the smoking, life would truly be a tragic comedy. Preston waded away from his fellows eventually and joined me, though he didn't smoke.

"We could use someone like you" he said, with an inviting smile. "Someone who's willing to look out for people just because it's the right thing to do." I didn't know if I believed him at the time, but I know now that he was definitely genuine with me.

He invited me to join the Minutemen.

Strangest string of decisions I ever made. I agreed to it.


End file.
